Sections

Sections

World

Victims dismiss Pope's plan to combat sex abuse

People hold up pictures of what they claim to be victims of priests sexual abuse as they gather during a twilight vigil prayer near Castle Sant' Angelo, in Rome, Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019. Pope Francis opened a landmark sex abuse prevention summit Thursday by warning senior Catholic figures that the faithful are demanding concrete action against predator priests and not just words of condemnation.Photo: Gregorio Borgia

The Telegraph

Published: February 21, 2019 - 8:28 PM

Pope Francis put forward a 21-point plan yesterday (Thurday) for combating the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, but the proposals were dismissed by victims as wholly inadequate and a recycling of procedures that already exist.

The list of “reflection points” was put forward by the Pope on the first day of a summit that was convened in response to sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church around the world.

“The holy people of God looks to us, and expects from us not simple and predictable condemnations, but concrete and effective measures to be undertaken,” the Pope said as the conference, the first of its kind, got under way at the Vatican. “Hear the cry of the little ones who plead for justice.”

The nearly 200 bishops, cardinals and heads of religious orders attending the conference were addressed by victims of predatory priests, with one telling them bluntly: “You are the physicians of the soul and yet, with rare exceptions, you have been transformed into murderers of the soul. What a terrible contradiction.”

Another victim warned that clerical sex abuse in Asia was a “time bomb” waiting to explode.

The 21 points drawn up by the Pope are intended as a road map for the bishops and cardinals as they consider how to stamp out the scourge of priests raping and molesting children.

The first point called for the drawing up of “a practical handbook indicating the steps to be taken by authorities at key moments when a case emerges.”

Campaigners said such guidelines were already established within the Church. “A handbook like this was drawn up in Canada back in 1992,” said Bernadette Howell, an abuse victim originally from Ireland but now living in Canada. “So after 25 years, this is not new. These seem to be platitudes.”

Peter Isely, the head of survivors’ group Ending Clergy Abuse, said: “It’s too vague. What counts would be zero tolerance, written into Church law.”